UK bugged Annan's office, says former minister

Britain spied on the United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, in the run-up to the Iraq war, a former British cabinet minister, Clare Short, said yesterday.

"Yes, absolutely . . . these things are done, and in the case of Kofi's office it's been done for some time," Ms Short told BBC radio. She said she had read transcripts of Mr Annan's conversations.

Ms Short, a long-serving member of the Blair Government, quit as secretary for international development in May last year in protest over the Iraq war.

And on Wednesday, prosecutors in London dropped a case against Katharine Gun, a translator. As the war loomed, she had leaked a US intelligence memo request for Britain to help spy on non-aligned UN Security Council members.

Ms Short's sensational claim emerged during an interview on BBC radio's Today program about the Gun case. "Spying on the United Nations is quite different, isn't it?" she was asked.

She replied: "Well indeed, but these things are done, and in the case of Kofi's office it's been done for some time."

The interviewer then asked: "Let me repeat the question. Do you believe Britain has been involved in it?"

Ms Short replied: "Well, I know. I've seen transcripts of Kofi Annan's conversations. In fact I've had conversations with Kofi in the run-up to war, thinking: 'Oh dear, there will be a transcript of this and people will see what he and I are saying.' "

Interviewer: "So in other words, British spies ... have been instructed to carry out operations within the UN on people like Kofi Annan."

Ms Short: "Yes, absolutely."

Interviewer: "Did you know about this when you were in government?"

Ms Short: "Absolutely. I read some of the transcripts of the accounts of his conversations."

In the Gun case, new evidence pointing to serious doubts in the British Government about whether the war in Iraq was legal was passed to government lawyers shortly before they abandoned the case.

The prosecution offered no evidence on Wednesday against Ms Gun, a former employee of the British listening centre GCHQ, despite her admission that she leaked information.

She said she acted to try to prevent Britain illegally invading Iraq. But the prosecution at the Old Bailey in London said there was no "realistic prospect" of convicting her.

The leading prosecutor, Mark Ellison, would not go into the reasons for dropping the case. But a key defence point presented to the prosecutors shortly before it abandoned the case was evidence that the Foreign Office had questioned the war's legality.

The evidence is in a document The Guardian has seen. One passage says: "The defence believes that the advice given by the Foreign Office legal adviser expressed serious doubts about the legality (in international law) of committing British troops in the absence of a second [UN] resolution." It is understood that the lawyers were concerned about the lack of a second UN resolution authorising the use of force.

Ms Gun's lawyer, James Welch, said: "Our case was that any advice the Government received on the legality of war was relevant to Katharine's case and we were prepared to go before a judge and argue for it to be disclosed."